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Businesses all over the world are adopting ways to deliver effective learning programs to their employees to help increase user engagement, productivity and retention. Looking after the learning and training needs of your employees is central to the success of every organization. Companies these days want to create a robust platform for corporate training that can deliver effective corporate training programs to a wider audience. And that is where a learning management system (LMS) fits the bill.

A learning management system can offer many benefits to organizations of all sizes. But first, let’s define what an LMS is all about.

What is an LMS?

An LMS is an enterprise-wide application that enhances the flow of information to managers. Asdescribed byAsha Pandey, CMD and Chief Learning Strategist at EI Design, it can manage, track, regulate, monitor and deliver learning programs to a wide audience. In addition to delivering fully automated online training, an LMS can support hybrid training models like blended learning and the flipped classroom approach. Also, an LMS solution can deliver training content, assignments and tests to employees, track their progress, manage recordkeeping and offer support on a continuous basis.

Benefits of adopting an LMS

The online revolution has altered our lives in many ways. The way we communicate, shop, and even learn and train have changed for the better. eLearning is an effective way of delivering course material in a classroom or training room environment. eLearning software solutions allow organizations to deliver corporate training programs and courses online, or other platforms.

How an LMS improves learning

It keeps track of learning – Employee development and meeting all the compliance norms are the two key factors that concern every organization. With an LMS in place, you don’t have to worry about these factors, as it tracks who has taken the training and how well they performed.

It reminds you about retraining – Learning and training should be a continuous process if you want your employees to remain up-to-date on all developments. An LMS can keep you informed on the last training taken by your employees, and the upcoming retraining schedule.

It provides real-time reporting – An LMS can track the progress of your employees accurately and provide comprehensive reports in real time.

It offers on-demand learning – With an LMS in place, your employees have around-the-clock access to training materials. They also have the option of revisiting the courses if they want to review the material.

It allows anytime, anywhere learning – mLearning – or mobile learning – is a growing trend, with organizations now delivering training courses on such mobile devices as smartphones and tablets.

How an LMS benefits your organization

Helps improve your employees’ performance – With an LMS in place, you can access eLearning courses on demand. It keeps your employees current on all recent developments and compliance norms, which helps improve their overall performance.

It speeds the process of compliance training – Bringing new hires up to speed faster is another advantage. Even for established employees, an LMS helps get everyone on board simultaneously when organizational changes occur, or new compliance regulations are established.

It helps multiple site deployment – You can conduct training at different locations without concerns about training consistency and uniformity. The same message is delivered across all locations, and everyone has access to the same material.

Everyone gets a chance to attend the training – Employees have the flexibility to schedule their training to their convenience – either completing the session at once, or as they have time, depending upon their workflow.

It can align with your organization’s learning needs – An LMS is a powerful corporate training tool that takes into consideration your organization’s learning needs. You can train your employees for new initiatives easily, consistently and effectively, and measure the impact of learning.

What to look for in an LMS

When you buy LMS software for your organization, you need to make sure that it offers features that keep your employees engaged. If the LMS you purchase lacks compelling functionalities, it will be difficult to generate user engagement.

Micro-learning engages more than half of employees – Because 58% of those surveyed said they would like to engage more with the training content if it was broken up into shorter lessons, micro-learning is a growing trend.

Gamification – In the survey, 35% of the employees said that real-life rewards based on the progress of learning would be the top gamification incentive for using their organization’s LMS. This is another trend that is quickly spreading. LMS systems have incorporated many video game-like functions, such as leaderboards, badges and point systems.

Social learning modules, such as discussion boards and content sharing – In the survey, 24% of respondents said that the discussion board – followed by content sharing (23%) – would be the social learning module that engages them the most with their company’s online learning tools. Another popular trend in online learning is the surge in social learning due to the rise of the social media in the last decade.

Mobile access – In the survey, employees were asked whether they would be more comfortable using corporate training software on their mobile devices. Almost half of them (48%) said they are more likely to use an LMS on their mobile devices, but surprisingly 39% of them said that mobile access would not make any difference to them.

If a learning management system is what you are looking for,DocuServe has solutions that will help you produce, manage and distribute your eLearning content without the need to hire an expensive in-house content development team. Our comprehensiveLMS tool can take your learning and training standard to the next level.Contact us for all your eLearning needs, and increase the engagement of your team members.

I want you to take a minute and think about the number of Toyota cars or trucks you see on the road in a given day. 10? 20? 50?

Chances are if you drive for more than 20 miles, you’ll pass by closer to 100. According to Statista, over 44 Million Americans own a Toyota vehicle right now.

That’s 7% of the entire U.S. population AND about 17% of U.S. adults.

Can you imagine how streamlined Toyota’s operations have to be in order to build cars and trucks for 17% of our driving population?

But they do it, and they do it well. They also do it “just in time” using a manufacturing model developed by the British Motor Corporation in the mid-1950’s. This Just in Time inventory manufacturing method was then perfected by Japan and brought thousands of Toyotas to the U.S. in the 1970’s. In fact, a lot of people know it now as the Toyota Production System (TPS).

The rest, as they say, is history.

However, the Just in Time (JIT) method is far from being a thing of the past. Manufacturing companies from U.K. to South Korea use this methodology to reduce flow times within production, along with response times from suppliers to customers. The whole purpose of Just in Time for manufacturing is to meet demand not stockpile products or parts that exist only to rust on the shelves.

How Does Just in Time manufacturing work in 2017?

Before JIT, inventory was held in supply rooms just in case it was needed for production. Therefore, this method is now called the “Just-in-Case” method of inventory management. The Just-in-Time method, on the other hand, cuts waste by supplying parts only as they are needed. As soon as the part supply levels reach a certain point, more parts are ordered. This eliminates the need to hold any parts in permanent storage.

However, it also requires tighter inventory control, in addition to: flexible resources, steady production, reliable machines and lots of discipline on the part of managers and shop floor staff.

Why? If you produce only what you need and store only the parts you need at that time, there is much less room for error.

Companies like Hewlett-Packard were the first to make this kind of “stockless production” more wide stream in the U.S. And assembly line icon Henry Ford praised the concept behind JIT in his 1923 book, My Life and Work.

“If transportation were perfect and an even flow of materials could be assured, it would not be necessary to carry any stock whatsoever. The carloads of raw materials would arrive on schedule and in the planned order and amounts. That would save a great deal of money, for it would give a very rapid turnover and thus decrease the amount of money tied up in materials.”

Despite the common sense approach of JIT, a lot of manufacturing companies still struggle to implement the philosophy on their shop floors.

Why?

It’s easier to patch a hole than to build a new ship. The beauty of JIT manufacturing is that it increases ROI and removes the burden of high inventory. However, when you remove the security blanket of excess stock, you’re often left with a tangled mess of procedural issues to clean up.

And a lot of organizations simply would prefer not to lift that blanket in the first place.

JIT manufacturing requires both a mindset and a company culture shift. It requires that the production process be simplified and spelled out in a way that anyone’s “idiot nephew” (to quote the brilliant Warren Buffett) can run the operations when the managers are away.

It also depends on building a strong relationship with suppliers, to ensure deliveries are made on time and up to par. The key is to find suppliers who are also on board with the JIT philosophy. After all, if they produce parts in smaller batches, they can detect holes or errors in their own processes as well.

Here’s a great video that demonstrates how deep the JIT method is ingrained in Toyota employees.

When every part and every move matters, every employee’s mindset and buy-in matters too. While it takes time and work to achieve, it delivers more return than any other manufacturing model.

At DocuServe, we have been dedicated to the Just in Time manufacturing philosophy for over 20 years. In fact, we developed a content delivery platform called eServe just to address the need for more e-learning solutions that switching to JIT demands.

Since 1994, we have developed strong and supportive partnerships with our clients worldwide-helping them streamline their operations, their training and (in turn) their profits. Contact us if you want to know how we can do the same for you.

Let me ask you a question. Are you conducting your corporate training through an e-learning channel, like Blackboard or Moodle? It’s funny. Companies know they need to train their employees on security protocol, but often they communicate that protocol in some rather un-secure ways.

According to a recent survey from Trustwave, a majority of companies have either no system in place or a partial system in place for monitoring and tracking their sensitive data.

Moreover, what we have found at eServe is that many companies are unaware of what kind of data they even need to protect! Is that you?

Think about it. Any training session you conduct for a new hire or seasoned employee would (and should) include data about your company’s processes, products, customers, strategies, goals and more. They are not just casual blogs or press releases – training materials contain proprietary data. That is data your competitors would love to have and that you should do everything in your power to keep from getting out!

You don’t have to be in a government agency or big tech firm to worry about this either. Whether your data is intentionally hacked or just mishandled, you would be surprised at who might be interested in using it to their advantage – or where it might end up. Corporate training leaders in every field – from medicine to the culinary arts- has company secrets to protect.

And it is often only after those secrets have become vulnerable that they realize what that information means in the wrong hands.

1. The Threat of Hacking to Corporate Training

Remember Julian Assange of Wikileaks? His goal was simple – expose the hypocrisy of the U.S. and other governments. As an expert computer programmer, he was able to achieve this goal. But you don’t have to be a political organization or nation to be threatened by a motivated hacker. You just need one company wanting to mirror your company and with the know-how to go after your information. Don’t let sticky fingers threaten your bottom line.

2. The Threat of Careless Employees to Corporate Training

I bet if you were to survey your staff members you would find that at least 50% (if not more) write their password down on a sticky note and attach it to their monitor. Or, maybe they forget it altogether and use the password of their cubicle mate or neighbor. But who’s to say their neighbor is privy to the same information they are?

Also, who’s to say that sticky note doesn’t end up in the wrong hands? Or, what if the slides you presented during a WebEx conference aren’t saved on a staff member’s laptop that was accidentally lost or left behind?
An employee does not have to be disgruntled to leave your proprietary information in the wrong hands.

They just have to be human. If you’re sharing any secure information with your staff, always keep that in mind.

3. The Threat of Upheaval to Corporate Training

Another e-learning threat has nothing to do with the exposure of data – in fact it is quite the opposite. For some industries, such as medicine or finance, the rapid dissemination of information is crucial to the success of their operations. Many times, it can literally mean life or death.

Think about it like this. What if a medical organization in Florida scheduled a seminar titled “Zika Virus: Our response to the Threat & Treating Pregnant Women.” In 2016, the Zika crisis was a real and urgent threat for South Florida families. Getting the right information in the hands of professionals who needed it most was an urgent concern. Similar situations would be training for security institutions that contract out to the TSA or other government bodies.

Updates and training sessions are often ad hoc and almost always must go on without a hitch. Any threat to the system these sessions are conducted on could mean putting people and possibly whole areas at risk.

No matter where you fall on this spectrum or which threat concerns you the most, there is a solutions! Always secure your training sessions. Avoid putting your valuable knowledge in the wrong hands by setting up the right security infrastructure and protocol from the get-go:

• Only allow registered invitees to join meetings
• Create specific passwords for each meeting rather than the same password for all your meetings
• Coach your trainers to choose wisely who they let in the training rooms
• Create rank-based permission levels (i.e., Tier 1, Tier 2 and Tier 3 access levels)
• Track and analyze who accesses your data (when, where and how long)

Want to gain greater peace of mind with your corporate training content? eServe is a content delivery platform that helps you empower your staff with the freedom to train and learn on their schedule, while also providing you with the power to protect that information.

In the enigmatic words of Bob Dylan, “the times, they are a’changin’.”

The Internet has revolutionized the world in all spheres – from the way we communicate and shop to the way we learn and train. Thankfully, this has also opened up plethora of new avenues for education. With eLearning, Internet technology is being employed in a way that makes learning anywhere, anytime and at any speed.

Isn’t that such an exciting concept? No matter where you are at in the world or in the learning cycle, education can meet you where YOU are – not the other way around.

Also, while companies worldwide adapt and grow with e-learning applications, so do the applications and products themselves. There are tools to manage administration, automation, certification and micro-credentialing. Now, there are tools to manage content creation too!

Both the LMS and LCMS are enterprise wide-applications which enhance the flow of information from learning development teams to staff and new learners worldwide.

On that note, we are exciting to announce the development of our very own LCMS (Learning Content Management System). While the LMS (Learning Management System) manages people, the LCMS is a platform manages the content they consume.

And just like the flexibility of the LMS, the LCMS works anywhere, any time and at any speed – allowing you to cater the content to YOUR organization’s needs, rather than the other way around.

Want to know more?

Watch this introductory video to eServe – a tool designed to bring enterprise learning into the digital age.

While training professionals should understand these issues and create learning experiences in appropriate mediums, delivery considerations often distract them from what they most need to focus on: creating the content. While many enterprise companies have brought this function in house, small and mid-sized businesses are often without a reliable solution and are winging it. These companies often create simple, easily broken password-protected PDFs and call it a day, leaving their intellectual property up for grabs by their competitors.

When asked about these practices, my colleagues share stories that would give the company legal department pause. If your company’s content and people are what gives you the market edge, why would you leave your playbook in the other team’s locker room? The main response is about time and money. When there are so many options to consider- from ebooks formats and timed- access, to print and sharing considerations, many training professionals don’t have time to wade through the options and develop an organizational strategy.

If the resource isn’t in house, and your company values content security, it makes sense to find a partner who can help you develop an approach to content delivery and security, doesn’t it? What’s your strategy?